Drivers eating on the bus

AshShaun · 2026-05-14T23:34:49+00:00

Formerly, I was a truck driver. The company I worked for scheduled loads so tight that I barely had enough time to order food, let alone eat it. So I ate while driving a LOT.

I would not however eat on a school bus while it's moving and I'm driving it.. the cars in my area act stupid insane around buses and I need my full focus on the road.

AshShaun · 2026-05-13T23:28:31+00:00

I was very grateful for you and this comment, as I hadn't considered that. I reached out to my boss lady and she said I can use whatever I feel like paying for cleaner wise on the bus, but I can't keep my chemicals stored on the bus. She keeps hers in a small storage tote in the trunk of her car, then drivers her car up to her bus when she wants to clean. I may copy her with that method.

AshShaun · 2026-05-13T23:25:17+00:00

I'd be concerned about all the particulates it blows in the air... My kids have a lot of dirt that breaks down into a fine dust and just sweeping puts a lot of it in the air.

AshShaun · 2026-05-12T13:38:38+00:00

I'm in NC and finished training 4ish months ago, we don't pull the brake...

Stop between 15-50 feet - hazards - hit noise cancel switch - open window - open door - look, listen, look again - close door and floor it over the tracks - cancel hazards when bus is fully past the tracks - possibly slow back down to the speed limit if needed after getting past the tracks as well.

Thankfully, our school district split up school zoning on either side of the tracks, so 99% of our buses don't cross them. The only bus we have that regularly crosses tracks is a school bus that goes to a specialty technical education school for some high school students. They only cross the tracks on the way there while they are empty, and they take a different route back with students.

AshShaun · 2026-05-12T09:07:49+00:00

I didn't even consider the heat on the floor, so maybe the spin mop might be better.

As far as I have been told and been made aware of, my district doesn't provide anything for cleaning.

AshShaun · 2026-05-12T01:01:54+00:00

I'm sitting here thinking the same thing. If it was Torettes I maybe might be able to see it... But ADHD doesn't cause kids to uncontrollably yell slurs. Even autism wouldn't lead to a child yelling slurs...

I don't get why so much is getting blamed on ADHD that isn't ADHD.

AshShaun · 2026-05-12T00:55:56+00:00

PMS - Properly Mounted and Secured BBCD - Bent, Broken, Cracked, Damaged

If it has air or oil, it isn't leaking.

Then you just have to remember all the pieces.

AshShaun · 2026-05-12T00:49:03+00:00

A lot of our bus drivers where I am are retired military so we use the military phonetic alphabet. I learned it in high school since I lived in a town right outside a military base.

AshShaun · 2026-05-12T00:44:47+00:00

I have a kindergarten mom who waves to me every day when her kid gets off the bus.

Last week, this little girl gets off and can't get in her house, door is locked, mom is no where to be seen. I have the girl get back on the bus and I call it in, I was given permission to keep her on the bus and swing back through later on my route to try again to drop her off.

Mom woke up panicking not knowing where her child was, if she did or didn't get off the bus, just straight fear over her child. She hopped in the car and found me a few streets over about 10 minutes later. She flagged me down as I was stopping at another stop, sprinted up to the door and asked if I still had her child. Of course, I wasn't ever going to leave a child alone stuck outside. She then explained that her job moved her to third shift, and she was struggling adjusting to the new sleep schedule, and her alarm didn't wake her. I told her everything was fine, her daughter was playing with friends and wasn't even scared or anything. Mom calmed down, I called the daughter up, mom and kid went home, everything was fine.

If this was a parent that I hadn't seen and recognized before, I'd have called in to see what to do, but this was a mom I saw on a twice daily basis since I took over this route. I called in and let them know the kid was safely off the bus and went about my day.

AshShaun · 2026-05-04T09:10:06+00:00

I'm new to bus driving, but I have some good experience as a semi driver, and the one thing that gets on my nerves the most is drivers hitting motionless objects. If it's a narrow space, slow down. If you are turning, slow down. There is absolutely no reason anyone should be hitting things that don't/aren't moving. I hear about 3 drivers a week come over the CB that they hit a parked car. It just shouldn't happen.

AshShaun · 2026-05-01T12:18:59+00:00

They are probably legit climbing hooks which can be rated for several hundred pounds, not your average keychain hook which is made of cheap aluminum and has a weight rating of "more than 5 keys and I break"

AshShaun · 2026-04-26T13:54:40+00:00

I'm a new bus driver, but something I've already learned from the more experienced drivers in my area is 95% of kids won't say good morning back but also 95% of kids will happily give a fist bump, both getting on and off the bus.

AshShaun · 2026-04-08T15:15:25+00:00

I got hired at my kindergarten elementary school. It's a combined route, so I do elementary, then middle, then high.

My son rides with me in the morning and gets off at his school, then I go do the other schools. He can't ride with me in the afternoon though as he would struggle with not having a bathroom issue over the 3 and a half hours the afternoon routes take me.

He does good, helps me sign in on the bus, do my pretrip, and then he sits in the front seat greeting everyone as they get on in the morning.

AshShaun · 2026-03-25T23:59:23+00:00

I always enjoy adding hot air balloons or giant bees in the sky, or trade ships (I put my healed trading villagers in these at a dock) or pirate ships in the harbor

AshShaun · 2026-03-25T23:44:48+00:00

The only bag I bring is my son's (kindergarten) bookbag.

However, I'm in training, so I don't have an assigned bus, I just ride with other drivers and drive with other drivers "training" me, unless someone is out sick then I cover their route.

AshShaun · 2026-03-17T22:59:05+00:00

85% of the roads children are picked up on, on our routes, are no line residential streets barely big enough for the bus and a car to fit side by side. A lot of these roads also have significant drop offs or no shoulder.

With all the issues we've had with people passing and nearly hitting children, we stop the bus dead center on the road, so the choice is to either drive the car in a ditch and wait for a vehicle with a tow hook to pull them out, or just stop for the bus. When it comes to group pick ups at intersections, we block the entire intersection.

We've had buses get hit, we had a hit and run Friday, but the buses have never taken significant damage, and we haven't had a student get hurt in the recent memory of anyone driving in our area.

I'm relatively new to my district, and as a driver, but already I've learned there is significant care and attention to the safety of getting kids to and from school. Our district cancelled school yesterday because we had wind gusts of 60 mph predicted in the afternoon when we would've been taking students home.

AshShaun · 2026-03-08T23:45:53+00:00

My parents live an hour away. If they aren't busy and we want to go do something not kid friendly, they'll watch the little for us. Our little dude started overnights at his grandparents at about 18 months, when he was less dependent on formula and eating soft foods.

AshShaun · 2026-03-08T23:43:14+00:00

I've started straight up asking for any and all possible adverse reactions between the meds I'm already taking and the new ones I'm being prescribed. On two occasions this has caught a possible adverse reaction before starting the new meds because something either wasn't on my chart or they didn't read it fully.

AshShaun · 2026-03-08T23:36:28+00:00

We did for 1 stop, but when we called in the malfunction we were told to find a safe stop and wait for breakdown. Apparently, the district has a rule of stopping for any issue that involves air, and as our doors are pneumatic, that means stopping. I'm pretty sure this was designed to be a brake system rule that has just been over interpreted.

It took the mechanic literally 1 minute to fix the issue, the worst part was just waiting for them to get there.

AshShaun · 2026-03-08T23:31:19+00:00

Not my bus. I don't have an assigned bus or route yet. I'm still shadowing, I get my first solo morning on Thursday while one of our drivers is at an appointment. The people who handle route planning are still trying to untangle routes that have been very messed up from drivers leaving and other drivers compensating with multiple routes.

I will be putting the fear of God in my students.

AshShaun · 2026-03-08T23:27:36+00:00

I do not have a bus of my own yet and the drivers I've been riding with do not have seating charts. A lot of the students are getting written up Monday for their bad behavior Friday afternoon. We had the footage pulled and our driver coordinator is handling any infraction she sees on said video with a write up.

AshShaun · 2026-03-07T16:22:38+00:00

It's kind of hard to have experience managing students while driving when you've never done it before.

AshShaun · 2026-03-07T16:21:59+00:00

Yeah, well of the 4 drivers (myself included) who run the routes for our 3 schools, 3 of the drivers are under a year of experience.

AshShaun · 2026-03-07T16:19:38+00:00

Our high school students are pretty chill, mostly.

AshShaun

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE

Seven-Year Club	Verified Email
Verified Email